Hi guys! Welcome to episode 274 of the wildly successful lifestyle podcast! Thanks for hanging out with me!
Have you ever had a professional tell you something couldn’t be done, and you felt like it should be able to be done, so you were skeptical? How about having someone tell you something isn’t available only to find out that it is in fact available, for whatever reason, they didn’t have the correct information. This happened to me 3 times this week. Just this week! I feel like it’s something that just can’t be ignored. Covid restructured things in our world where it seems like it’s harder to get great customer service. I know it will rectify itself, the markets always do. If someone is doing the bare minimum, someone else will come along and do it better. It’s just how it works. So Im not being negative Nancy when I say that about our world, I actually think Covid’s shakeup of the world has opened up so many new doors, which I know is an optimists way to look at things. But Im an optimist, how else am I gonna look at it.
But I do really have a problem with just taking a “No, it can’t be done” at face value because I have pushed back on that and found that actually it can be done enough to be very skeptical when I hear it, even from a professional.
I was working on a project this week and we were working with a different sub contractor than we normally use, for one our client had used him before and liked him but he also was half the price of our normal guy we use. Ok so here we are in the thick of things and it becomes clear to me why he is half the price of our normal guy. Let me just say that it’s working with electric and I’m not an electrician but I have a passion for lighting and so I’ve worked a lot with it in my design world. I know when I’m being sold a pile of baloney.
My lighting plans are often forward thinking. We aren’t doing just the normal overhead light and call it a day. No way. So this new guy first of all tells me that what I want can’t be done which I know isn’t true because we’ve done it before and then he said the problem we were having in 2 of the lights was just a case of really bad luck and couldn’t be fixed. No further checking, no researching just simply “I don’t know and Im not even going to try” basically. So now we have to bring our original guy in to look and find the problem, which he will and it will get fixed. You see one electrician gives up, without even trying and then chalks the other thing up to bad luck and the other electrician won’t quit until he finds the answer. Even if it’s new or he doesn’t know. He figures it out. I’ll pay for that, that’s something that is worth it to me. And from now on, he will get my business. I learned a valuable lesson, one that I won’t soon forget. You do get what you pay for, having a person on your team that won’t quit is how you succeed and never take a “no” simply at face value.
Very often in our society people think it’s unfair that certain people have a level of wealth and others do not. In my opinion, the value you give is in direct correlation with the money you make.
You see the guys that were half the price, they will always be half the price because they don’t want to grow, they don’t want to learn. They want to do what’s easy and go home. And that’s fine for some people but it isn’t for me and it’s not for my contractor Billy, either which is why we work together so well. If there is a way, we are going to find it. If there’s not, we will know that too.
We know the value of persistence. Sometimes not quitting is all it takes to succeed.
I often laugh because Billy generally has no problem getting guys to work on his jobs because they know he’s going to keep calling until they show up so they may as well just show up and knock it out, that’s the contractor I want on my team. I will be having my daily 7:30 am call with Molly my baby sister when I say Billy is calling, let me call you back, She knows by now and I know he will keep calling until I answer so I might as well go ahead and answer. I kind of love that about him. But you see he doesn’t quit and he doesn’t take No at face value and most of he guys we work with don’t either.
When the first second third thing doesn’t work what if that 4th thing was it but you quit before you tried it? That’s what happens to most people. They quit just before they have a breakthrough or a success. And they never grow beyond where they are because they simply give up without researching or they chalk it up to bad luck and call it a day. They only want to work with the low hanging fruit. There’s a lot of competition for low hanging fruit. It’s easy and doesn’t require a lot of skill.
And a lot of people would have taken that answer “that won’t work” shrug their shoulders and just accept it. I have a tendency to frustrate those sub contractors that think I am naive because I am not going to take “it wont work” at face value. What have you tried? What would work? Is there someone that would know another way? Those are questions that as a designer you have to keep in your back pocket at all times. In fact, what if we all
You are going to run into that a lot in your life. People who tell you “we don’t have that” or “it wont work”.
Billy, my contractor and I were in Lowe’s recently and we were looking for a certain barn door hardware and we needed a little help with finding it. The lady we asked just said very matter of factly “We don’t sell anything like that”. I knew that wasn’t true because I had seen lots of options on the website. She even made a show of searching her website, and told us yeah we don’t carry it, sorry. So Billy and I looked at each other and I quickly pulled up my Lowes app and searched and found it on the site and showed it to her. Had we taken her at face value, we would have left the store without what we needed. Instead we had it delivered 2 days later to our clients door. It wasn’t that she was being malicious, she was nice, she just didn’t know and didn’t think we knew either so it was just easier to tell us no and go about her day.
The third time it happened this week, there was a pair of suede tennis shoes that I loved and I had found them on line but wanted to try them on to see how comfortable they would be, Im going to Paris in a few weeks and want a good cute pair of walking shoes. So I go into the store they are from and ask to try them on. The guy was so sweet and helpful, they didn’t have my size but I tried on the size up and it was too big so I knew my size would be great and they were super comfortable. So he decided we would just order them right there in the store. Great lets’ do it. Uh oh, it looks like they are completely out online now too. It wont let me order it because they are not available in your size now. So sorry.
I thanked him and went on my way. Now, we already know Im not one that takes no at face value, so as soon as I get home I get on my computer, and wala they are available and will be here in two days. Sometimes the difference between a “no” and a “yes” is simply not quitting. Simply not giving up. Being the one that asks the hard questions, and surrounding yourself with people who also wont quit.
Be persistent enough to get what you want. Don’t let the first no be the last. You may need 5 no’s to get to one yes. It’s worth it to me.
A lot of people would have gone to their next favorite shoe and bought it instead.
Learn to hold on when most people would be letting go. That’s how you get what you want, that’s one of the big differences between people who succeed and those who don’t. It’s not because they are the smartest, it could be they just were the ones that wouldn’t quit.
And if all else fails, google is miraculous. I learned more about flickering LED lights this week then I care to, but Im glad I did.
My challenge to you this week is to be persistent, don’t take “It can’t be done” or “we don’t have that” at face value. Learn to ask “what have you tried?” “What can be done?” And “Is there someone else we can ask?” These are non confrontational, open ended questions that often help open their own minds to what’s possible. It could be they were just hoping for an easy out and when you don’t give it to them, they start trying to come up with a solution.
One of the biggest complements someone could give me is “She never takes no for an answer.” That hasn’t always been true, It’s a learned trait for me. And if I can learn it, you can too.
I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days.
